When she’s not kicking ghostbutt, actress Kate McKinnon appears on Saturday Night Live as the cast’s first out lesbian. But what about her character, Jillian Holtzmann, one of the four women who strap-on proton packs in the upcoming remake, Ghostbusters? Is she gay? There’s been rampant speculation for months.
“I’m proud of the fact that you have four women starring in a movie and three of them are in their forties,” director Paul Feig told The Daily Beast. “It’s crazy that that would be a big thing now, and it’s sad that it is. But thank god.”
Yes, that’s nice. But the report says Holtzmann is often portrayed as “shamelessly flirting” with Kristen Wiig’s character, Erin. So, is she gay? Bisexual? What?
“What do you think?” Feig asked the reporter.
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“STOP BEING SO COY!” said one reader.
“I hate to be coy about it,” he said, as that one reader started to steam. “But when you’re dealing with the studios and that kind of thing…” Daily Beast writer Jen Yamato wrote that he “shrugged apologetically,” and she let him off the hook with a sorta kinda non-answer:
“You know, Kate is who she is and I love the relationship between Kate and Melissa’s characters. I think it’s a very interesting, close relationship. If you know Kate at all she’s this kind of pansexual beast where it’s just like everybody who’s around her falls in love with her and she’s so loving to everybody she’s around. I wanted to let that come out in this character.”
Rich Juzwiak wrote in Gawker that he’s asked Sony for clarification, as to whether they forced Feig to set McKinnon’s character straight. He rails against the pinkwashing Feig suggests has happened yet again in Hollywood.
“…Columbia Pictures (owned by Sony) is concerned that a gay character will be unmarketable, or offensive to idiots, or maybe reach out from the screen to molest the children sitting in the theater, then that’s fucked up. Ambiguity is fun until it exists to service those who are still uncomfortable with the idea that a good guy can be gay. What this creative decision, alongside Feig’s apparent admission of it perpetuate, is covering, the notion that in order to be socially acceptable, a queer person must tone down her sexuality.”
LGBTQ Nation has likewise reached out for clarification. Who else were we gonna call?
